GM: "Actually the protests did spread to other cities, though Beijing was the center of it all."

True, but the protests that YOU were talking about were Tiananmen Square. You chose the place, not me. And that doesn't change the fact that TS is closed in. And it doesn't change the fact the the protests were peaceful. Neither of those things is likely to occur under a widespread to literally knock on doors and confiscate guns. And, it would have to be coordinated nationwide, because of the rise of technology and means of communication. Look at Flight 93. (And, incidentally, that was an unarmed revolt.)

Returning to the point at hand, I still do not see any inconsistency with the notion that Baraq intends to weaken our military tremendously, yet it will still be able to back up random outbursts of resistance to the accumulating momentum of a slice the salami strategy.

"Weakening our military tremendously" does not equate with "third world military." I still can't figure out which definiton/description/idea we are working with here. And it matters, unless people here don't mean what they say. If we are all subject to hyperbole, that's fine. Just let me know.

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.

Let's take this to another thread. I'll look up the book, but the intial premise is laughable.

Dem state senator to rape victim: Having a gun on you probably wouldn’t have stopped him, you knowposted at 6:01 pm on March 5, 2013 by Allahpundit

Via Katie Pavlich, who reminds us that Colorado is the same state that brought us the urination defense to sexual assault in lieu of carrying concealed plus this moron mumbling about women with guns maybe taking potshots at innocent men whom they only think are rapists. The thing to remember as you watch the clip, in which an honest to goodness state legislator reasons that because the victim couldn’t karate the rapist off of her then a gun probably wouldn’t have worked either, is that there really are no “good” arguments against women arming themselves against sexual assault. Gun-control fans resort to idiocy like this vis-a-vis rape simply because they’ve got nothing better on the shelf than “well, maybe try blowing a whistle to alert the police instead.” In fact, per Pavlich’s post, the victim here was attacked just 50 feet from a campus police station (yes, Bob Beckel, it does happen) and since it was after hours, there was no help on the way. Which, as Jeffrey Goldberg notes, is not uncommon when a crime’s in progress:

An important, and overlooked, fact of the Sandy Hook tragedy is that it took police 20 minutes to arrive at the school. The police are spread too thinly across many American communities to stop shootings in their first moments. And armed civilians have been instrumental in stopping shootings at New Life Church in Colorado, Pearl High School in Mississippi and elsewhere.

This hasn’t stopped some Democrats from arguing against armed self-defense. Some left-wing commentators, members of a class not previously known for its love of the police, think their fellow citizens don’t possess adequate faith that law enforcement will protect them…

Shortly after Sandy Hook, a blogger at the Washington Monthly, making the unfounded assumption that the police provide Americans with flawless protection, asked, “Isn’t one of the fundamental reasons of forming any kind of government in the first place to provide for a common defense, instead of having to bear the totality of that burden all by yourself?” Yes, but this misses the point entirely. When the government’s provision of defense is inadequate, as it usually is during a mass shooting, you have to defend yourself.When you boil down Hudak’s “statistical” argument, what she’s really saying is that guns are so dangerous that society’s better off leaving women unarmed and tolerating a certain amount of rape than letting them arm up and risking extra gun thefts and shootings. Note to House Democrats: I encourage you to run on that message in 2014 as part of your big “yay, gun control” platform. Suggested slogan: “You’re safer when you’re defenseless.”

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.

Let's take this to another thread. I'll look up the book, but the intial premise is laughable.

James O’Keefe’s latest video shows the ugly truth: if you don’t own a gun, you are on your own. In the video, he goes into police stations (predominately in the anti-gun Northeast) and collects a shocking harvest of responses from officers about how the police have no ability to protect them. Traffic and time prevent effective responses to 911 calls. O’Keefe’s undercover protagonist pushes the issue, “well, how am I supposed to protect my family if I don’t have a gun?”

“You’re own your own,” is the common response. Others suggest defending your family with bleach, 2 x 4′s, yelling, or holding a cell phone to your ear and pretending you are talking to the police. It demonstrates the immorality of gun control policies in places like New York and New Jersey. One New York cop says a “shotgun or rifle is a luxury.” A government acts immorally when it prevents you from defending the lives of your children. If you care about keeping your family free from violence, move South.

"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once." -- Justice Alex Kozinski, US 9th Circuit Court, 2003

Three days before the December massacre in Newtown, Conn., a 22-year-old gunman named Jacob Tyler Roberts opened fire at the Clackamas Town Center, a suburban shopping mall in Portland, Ore. He killed two people before killing himself, though it could have been much worse. His stolen semiautomatic AR-15 rifle jammed early in his shooting spree.

"No one can dialogue with someone holding a machine gun... . The gun holders know that as well as those wanting to discuss with those of differing views. "ginny feldman, portland, orRead Full Comment »

Ginny Burdick, 65, a veteran state legislator, is probably the fiercest gun control advocate in the Oregon State Senate. In recent years, however, as the chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee, she had focused most of her attention on tax policy and budgetary issues. Then came the horrors of Clackamas and Newtown.

“I said to my fellow legislators, ‘Sorry folks, I have to put this back on the front burner,’ ” she told me the other day. She had already sponsored a bill to limit magazines to 10 rounds or less. She immediately sponsored several other bills, including one requiring background checks for private gun sales. (Thanks largely to Burdick, Oregon was one of the few states that had already closed the “gun-show loophole.”) Another would make it illegal for people with concealed carry licenses to take their guns into an Oregon school.

“We were in the middle of a special session on a very important tax bill,” she said. “I was right on the middle of it. I said, ‘We’re going back to guns.’ ”

Although there is widespread gun ownership in Oregon, Burdick has consistently been re-elected because most of the state’s gun owners — like many gun owners across the country — are in favor of sensible gun regulation. But most of Burdick’s initiatives over the years have been thwarted by the National Rifle Association, which strikes fear in Oregon legislators, just as it does lawmakers across the country.

Which is also why Burdick felt so strongly that Clackamas and Newtown, horrible though they were, offered a unique opportunity. Many gun extremists, however, realized the same thing. They fought back. In mid-January, two men began walking around a Portland neighborhood with assault weapons strapped to their backs. Even as schools in the area were locking down, the men insisted that they were “educating the public” about their Second Amendment rights. A month later, at a pro-gun rally at the State Capitol, a number of gun owners openly wielded their weapons — even bringing them into the building.

Burdick began receiving, as she puts it, “the usual threatening e-mails” — as did a fellow gun control advocate in the Legislature, Mitch Greenlick. He told The Oregonian that the e-mail he received from gun extremists was often abusive, obscene and anti-Semitic. He predicted that gun legislation would go nowhere because legislators were too frightened to act. “Politics by intimidation,” he called it.

And then there was Burdick. She was scheduled to hold a town-hall meeting on March 4. But at an earlier town hall held by several other legislators, gun advocates badgered them with angry questions. One of the questioners admitted he was carrying a concealed weapon. Fearing that someone might show up with a gun at her town hall, Burdick decided to postpone it. Not wanting to inflame the situation, she said she had a scheduling conflict.

On the evening of March 4, two men sat in a car across from her home and videotaped her. They showed her driving into her garage and taking out her garbage. Having “proved” that Burdick did not have a scheduling conflict, they then put together a short video of Burdick at home. Jeff Reynolds, the chairman of the Multnomah County Republican Party, who also claims to be a citizen journalist, posted the video on a Web site he runs.

When I spoke to Reynolds, he conceded that the videographer was a friend but refused to divulge his name. He said the video had nothing to do with the gun issue. “She lied,” he told me. “She is accountable to we the people.”

He added, “This was no different than what Mike Wallace used to do at ‘60 Minutes.’ There was no intimidation.” Sure.

These days, Democrats control both houses of the Oregon Legislature as well as the governor’s office. Moderate Republicans running against incumbent Democrats are being beaten in legislative races. The Republicans even lack a credible candidate to take on the current governor, John Kitzhaber, in 2014.

The extremist tactics of people like Jeff Reynolds and his videographer friend are clearly part of the reason why — they’ve helped delegitimize the Oregon Republican Party. But the tactics have other consequences, too. The gun bills filed in the Oregon Legislature — by Burdick, Greenlick and others — are by no means assured of passage.

“Other legislators look at what happened to me, and they say to themselves, ‘Do I really want to get involved in this?’ ” Burdick said. “My argument is that this is our job. But it is tempting to look the other way.”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the Democratic Party’s leadership in the House of Representatives, suggested to Jason Mattera at a Feb. 13 women’s rights rally that plans for an assault weapons ban and private-sales background checks were only the beginning of a broader gun control agenda extending to handguns as well.

Schakowsky evidently did not recognize Mattera, a conservative video journalist and senior investigative reporter for Talk Radio Network, who infamously confronted Vice President Joe Biden in the Capitol. (Mattera introduced himself to Schakowsky by name but did not indicate that he was filming or that he is conservative.) She spoke to Mattera as if he were a fellow gun control enthusiast--and Mattera played along, eliciting answers about Schakowsky’s enthusiasm for gun control.

“We want everything on the table,” Schakowsky told Mattera. “This is a moment of opportunity. There’s no question about it.”

One poignant exchange was as follows:

Schakowsky: We’re on a roll now, and I think we’ve got to take the--you know, we’re gonna push as hard as we can and as far as we can.

Mattera: So the assault weapons ban is just the beginning?

Schakowsky: Oh absolutely. I mean, I’m against handguns. We have, in Illinois, the Council Against Handgun... something [Violence]. Yeah, I’m a member of that. So, absolutely.

In another exchange, Schakowsky proposed allowances for states and municipalities to ban guns--though such laws have been repeatedly rejected by the Supreme Court:

Mattera: We’ll never get a handgun ban with the Second Amendment as stated.

Schakowsky: I don’t know. I don’t know that we can’t. And there may be an allowance, once again, for communities--I have communities in my district that prohibited handguns within their borders. The rights of municipalities and states to view that as a sensible way to keep people safe--I don’t think it’s precluded.

When Mattera asked why legislators were not pressing for a handgun ban, given that most murders are committed with handguns, Schakowsky replied: “Because we’re not going to be able to win that. Not now.” She went on to explain why background checks were a useful interim policy, arguing that they would “address any kind of weapon.”

Schakowsky’s remarks about plans for broader gun control are not the first time she has revealed the long-term goal behind short-term policy debates. She has a tendency to do so when speaking to apparently sympathetic audiences. In 2009, she told a crowd that the goal of Obamacare would be to “put the private insurance industry out of business.”

Officially, Democrats--including Schakowsky--hew to the party line as laid down by the president, which pledges support for the Second Amendment and for gun ownership in rural communities where hunting and shooting are viewed as traditional pastimes.

Gun owners fear that the Sandy Hook-inspired gun control measures before Congress--none of which would have stopped the mass shooting at Sandy Hook--are a prelude to broader regulations, including the banning of handguns and the eventual registration and confiscation of firearms, despite earnest assurances by Democrats to the contrary.

The Democratic Party has taken a hard line on guns recently, with President Obama’s strategist, David Axelrod, joining New York mayor Michael Bloomberg in backing gun control enthusiast Robin Kelly over former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, who has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, in the recent primary to replace former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois. Kelly has promised to be a “leader” in “banning guns.”

In America we are now where Germany was in 1933, and where Russia was in 1917. God forbid that we continue on.

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"~Adolph Hitler, 1935,on The Weapons Act of Nazi Germany

Schumer’s Transfer Tyranny He wants you to get a background check if you lend your friend a gun for the weekend.

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Yesterday, S. 374, or the “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013” as it has been inexplicably termed, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by ten votes to eight. If it were to become law, S. 374 would usher in what advocates refer to as a system of “universal background checks.” It would do a lot more, besides. As it stands in our ostensibly ghoulish status quo, a free American citizen may leave his guns with his unrelated roommate for more than seven days; he may lend a gun to a friend so that that friend is able to go shooting or hunting; he has more than 24 hours in which to report to the police if his guns are stolen; and he may even — shock, horror! — teach a friend to shoot on his own land. Most important, he may do all of these things without spending five years in prison in consequence. This, the Senate’s bill would change.

Until Senator Chuck Schumer crowbarred in his amendments at the eleventh hour, S. 374 was, as Kevin Drum characterized it, a pretty “meaningless law.” This pushed Drum to sigh that “post-Sandy Hook Washington DC . . . seems an awful lot like pre-Sandy Hook Washington DC.” Not now it doesn’t, for Chuck Schumer is on it. For good measure, Schumer added to his revisions a change in the transfer-fee details, telegraphing to watchful eyes the latitude that he would like to give to the state. The Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011, on which Schumer’s bill is based, would have set fees at a flat $15; the amended bill leaves the fee structure at the mercy of later regulations to be determined by the attorney general. Passing established rules through Congress, as Obamacare’s endless instances of “the secretary shall” demonstrated, is passé. Allowing the executive branch to make the rules on a whim? Much more convenient.

S. 374 represents a direct blow to Americans’ right to keep and bear arms without excessive government interference. The bill holds that any “transfer” of a firearm must be conducted via a middleman (in practice, a law-enforcement officer or the holder of a Federal Firearms License) and that a transferee is obliged to submit to a check under the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. There are good-faith arguments in favor of and against this provision. But Chuck Schumer has narrowed the definition of “transfer” so strictly as to make his proposition absurd. If, for example, a gun owner leaves his home for more than seven days — leaving his firearms with his roommate, or gay partner, or landlord — he’ll be committing a felony that carries a five-year prison term. And while married couples are exempted from falling afoul of that provision, the family exemptions apply only to recorded “gifts” and not to “temporary transfers.” In order to avoid making felons of millions of couples, the government would, at the very least, need to spell out clearly what constitutes “gifting” a gun within a family and what constitutes a “temporary transfer,” thus regulating an area that has hitherto largely been left alone.

What else would change? Well, it would be illegal to lend a gun to a friend so that he can go shooting. Want to give your pistol to your neighbor so he can pop down to the range for a few hours but don’t have time to go with him? Sorry, better make sure you look good in orange. Need more than the allowed 24 hours to report a stolen gun to the authorities? What is this — Somalia? You’re a felon: Go straight to jail. Do not collect $200. Sharing guns between buddies on a hunting trip? Five years inside for you. But the real genius of Schumer’s bill is the permanence of its effects: Once you’ve proven yourself the sort of monster who might teach your neighbors’ children to shoot targets in the garden, you’re a felon, and you can’t own firearms without the explicit permission of the state.

S. 374 almost certainly has a long way to go. Some have indicated that waving it through the committee was simply a matter of process, a technical trick by which it could be indicated to the public that the Senate is serious about gun control. Others have noted that Harry Reid has promised not only that he won’t bring a bill that is unlikely to pass to a Senate vote but that he is keen to ensure that any proposal has a realistic chance of getting through the House. As the Washington Times reported yesterday, Schumer even conceded that his bill is “not the only way to do it.”

To these hesitations I say pish and posh! It is time, as Gabby Giffords keeps urging, to be “brave.” It is time to stand athwart the agenda of “special interests” — such as the Second Amendment, our free citizenry, the historical evidence, and basic common sense — and to raise our voices instead for the forgotten in America: the responsible gun sellers. For under the new law, they will inherit the earth. And all of the “transfer” business, too.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday a proposal to renew the federal assault weapons ban could not win even 40 votes on the Senate floor.

Reid said that is the reason he will not include the assault weapons ban, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), in the gun-violence bill he plans to bring to the Senate floor after the Easter recess.

No - I am not being paranoid. Read the following article by the excellent Brandon Smith, and judge for yourself if there is reason to be concerned:

The Real Reasons Why The Liberty Movement Is Preparing To Fight

Tuesday, 19 March 2013 04:19 Brandon Smith

Years ago while writing for Neithercorp Press I penned an article entitled “One Day Soon, We’ll All Be Homegrown Terrorists”. In that piece I described a not so far off future in which martial law, economic collapse, and the destruction of civil liberties stood imminent. I related my views on the propaganda rhetoric of the SPLC, and how they were using false association to tie liberty groups to any deviant organization they could think of, including racists and domestic terrorists, in order to condition the American public to react to our message with immediate contempt.

It became clear to me then that the SPLC, which had become the propaganda wing of the widely reviled Department Of Homeland Security, was helping set the stage for a paradigm shift in the U.S. This shift would obviously include economic and social disruption, as well as political turmoil beyond anything our nation has seen for over 150 years. But most importantly, it would pave the way for certain elements of the American populace, namely those who are awake, aware, and outspoken, to be labeled “enemy combatants” dangerous to the state.

Though posing as an anti-racist monitoring institution, the SPLC’s primary concern has never been the KKK or “White Identity”. Rather, the SPLC’s job has been and always will be to marginalize and defame those who stand against centralized federal power, regardless of how corrupt that power has become. They are not anti-racists, or liberals, or concerned citizens; they are STATISTS, who only care about maintaining the superiority of a government that has been bought and paid for many times over by a gaggle of international financiers with delusions of godhood.

The SPLC, of course, has so far utterly failed in their efforts to stop the rise of Constitutional activists. By their own admission, “patriot groups” have expanded exponentially since 2008, and continue to develop freely even in the face of wildly absurd character attacks taken from the amoral (immoral) guidebook of Saul Alinsky himself. The truth, once realized, is difficult if not impossible to stop.

Unfortunately, the establishment understands this as well…

Given a few more years, the Liberty Movement will indeed prevail in the struggle for the “infowar”. Naysayers who claimed we were merely an ineffective and irrelevant peripheral of society are now faced with a strong and growing minority which has the power to swing state and local elections, as we did in 2012, simply by refusing to vote for oath breaking Republicans, sending the message that if the Republican party ever wants to win again, they had better run honest Constitutionalists. Those who claimed our message was “insane conspiracy theory” must now explain the indefinite detention and rendition provisions of the NDAA, the government approved unleashing of 30,000 surveillance drones in American skies, the Obama Administration's assassination list which includes U.S. citizens, and the push for gun registration and confiscation which is already beginning to take place in some states.

How did we know what was coming? Was it intuition or lucky conjecture? Neither. All we had to do was look at the trends of the day and use logic to discern the most likely outcome.

Our concerns, which were once called “fringe”, are now going mainstream. We were right, they were wrong. Though, I wish we had been wrong…

Just as the public is on a shrinking timeline, so are the elites. For every burst forward in our efforts to wake up the population to the loss of their freedoms and heritage, they must speed up their plans to gain economic and political supremacy. The harder you pull on the ends of a frayed rope in opposite directions, the sooner it is going to snap.

Today, as never before, I believe our culture has reached the breaking point, which is why the SPLC has pushed their attacks on the Liberty Movement into overdrive with manipulative media hit pieces like this:

As well as their latest propaganda piece “The Year In Hate And Extremism”:

The SPLC plays the role of the frantic watchman, crying out at the approach of the Mongol hordes, but their childish and ill conceived methods continue to expose their true intentions. Is the Liberty Movement preparing for war? No, but we are preparing to defend ourselves. Here are the SPLC assertions of why we are ready to fight, followed by the real reasons behind our preparations…

1) Because Obama Is Half Black?

No. Obama could be neon green and we couldn’t care less. The SPLC attempts to equate the growth of “patriot groups” with the election of the first black president, while leaving out much more likely catalysts including our current economic spiral (which they often refer to as “conspiracy theory”), or the Obama Administration’s expansion and even application of numerous unconstitutional provisions, some of which were launched by the Bush Administration.

How does the SPLC explain the majority of the Liberty Movement’s staunch opposition to the Romney Campaign if all we cared about was race? How do they reconcile the fact that we are just as critical of the Republican elite as we are of the Democrats? What about the reality that many of our organizations (like Oath Keepers) are made up of numerous races and nationalities?

They never do. They simply ignore this information as if it is not pertinent to the issue. The truth is, Obama is a middle man, a mascot, an easily replaced muppet. He is not our primary interest, and his color is meaningless. The international banks that funded his campaign and whose members occupy numerous positions within the White House, though, ARE our primary concern.

2) Because We Are Afraid Of An Economic Collapse That Will Never Come?

The SPLC refers to almost everything as “conspiracy theory” because they hope that the average American is too stupid to question their rhetoric. Calling someone a “conspiracy theorist” is the modern equivalent of accusing a person of being mentally ill; the goal is to inoculate the public against anything they have to say before they say it, even if it is the unbridled truth.

The SPLC has consistently shrugged off economic concerns as “paranoia”, but they never qualify their statements. Years ago I openly challenged Mark Potok and the whole of the SPLC to a debate on the health of the U.S. economy, and I reassert that challenge today. If they think our concerns are unfounded and a source of paranoia, then they should be willing to defend their position. I believe our financial system is on the fast track to collapse for quite a few reasons, including the fact that:

Our official national debt stands at $16.6 trillion. In 2008, the national debt was around $10 Trillion, meaning, we’ve added over $6 trillion in only 5 years. (Gee, is it possible that this has pissed Americans off more than Obama’s ethnicity?)

Real national debt including entitlement programs and future obligations is estimated between $60 Trillion and $120 Trillion.

Our official debt to GDP ratio (the amount of capital our country generates versus what it owes) stands at 102%. Historically, when a country crosses the 100% mark in its debt to GDP, there is a marked chance of economic crisis. If you count all of the programs and entitlements that the Federal Government doesn’t include in its “official” arithmetic, our debt to GDP ratio is actually closer to 400%. This means an economic crisis is ASSURED.

The Labor Department, using what they call “adjusted numbers” places unemployment at 7.9%. Real unemployment including U6 measurements (those people who are underemployed, and those people who have been unemployed for so long they no longer receive benefits and are no longer counted by the government) stands at over 20%.

In 2009, 32 million Americans were enrolled in food stamps. Today, that number has grown to 48 million. That’s a 50% increase in only 4 years.

The number of people on standard disability has hit a record of 9 million, and has grown every month for the past 192 months.

For the past four years I have pointed out that China, our largest foreign creditor, only needs to do two things before dumping the dollar as the world reserve currency – find a consumer market source to replace the U.S., and, spread it’s own currency around the globe to create a viable alternative to the greenback.

Today, China has announced a full blown transition into a consumer based economy and has established bilateral trade agreements with enough developing nations to easily replace the U.S. as an export market.

This past month, China announced a massive “urbanization project” in which they will sell over $6 trillion in Yuan denominated bonds worldwide. China has also surpassed the U.S. for the first time ever as the world’s largest trade market, meaning, the Yuan will now be more sought after than the Dollar as a global trade mechanism. The Chinese are nearly ready to dump the dollar, causing an international chain reaction that will brutally devalue our currency.

I think our economic worries are clearly reasonable…

3) Because We Are Paranoid Over Unfounded Threats Of Martial Law?

In the calm before any great war, there is always an escalation of arms on both sides of the conflict. Anyone who has carefully studied the history of modern warfare KNOWS an escalation when they see one. At the same time, anyone who has studied the history of citizen disarmament knows that government restriction and confiscation of personal firearms almost always leads to genocide. Over the past decade, we have seen blatant indications that domestic agencies of the Federal Government are in the midst of arms stockpiling, and, in the past two months, they are pushing harder than ever before to reduce the defensive capabilities of the American public.

The Department Of Homeland Security has in only a few years placed orders for ammunition totaling at least 1.6 billion rounds, and new orders indicate they may be accumulating over 2 billion rounds. The DHS has initiated a disinformation campaign through the mainstream media claiming that this ammunition stockpile, which is to be delivered over the course of five years, is for “training purposes only”. Here is the reality…

First, by the department’s own numbers, training and qualification exercises taking place in three facilities nationwide use a total of 15 – 20 million rounds of ammo yearly. This means that if the DHS claims are true, they have ordered enough ammo to last a minimum of 75 years! No government agency plans this far ahead.

Second, the DHS and most federal and state law enforcement agencies DO NOT use hollow point pistol ammo and expensive Sierra Match King hollow point sniper rounds for “training”. Anyone who knows anything about combat simulation training knows that you use the cheapest plinking ammo you can find, and this includes the government. The ammo purchased by the DHS is used for one thing only; killing people.

Third, if this ammo is being used only for non-threatening purposes, then why is the DHS now redacting order requests in a ploy to hide what they are purchasing?

Why is the DHS using training targets featuring children and pregnant women? Why has the Federal Government put plans into motion to release 30,000 drones above our heads? Why have they instituted the passage of the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA which can be used to revoke the civil rights of anyone deemed an “enemy combatant” by the executive branch, including American citizens? Why has Obama bypassed the Treason Clause of the U.S. Constitution in order to greenlight assassinations of American citizens? Why has Attorney General Eric Holder stated that predator drones have not been ruled out as a weapon against American citizens on American soil? Why has a branch of the military, Northcom, been deployed domestically in the U.S.? Who are they here to fight?

The government is telling us, right to our faces, that they plan to use extraneous force against us, and where else would this force be initiated on such a scale except during martial law? The extensive militarization of any domestic government agency requires as a response the extensive armament of the citizenry, otherwise, there is no deterrent to tyranny.

4) Because We Refuse To Accept That The World Is Changing Without Us?

This argument is based on a series of lies, the first one being that American culture needs to “progress with the times” and shake off the dead skin of old and “unpopular” principles. Let’s set the record straight…

Some principles, like the liberties embodied in natural law and outlined in the U.S. Constitution, NEVER become outdated. They exist in the heart of mankind, and will remain as long as humanity remains. They cannot be erased, and they cannot be undone. They are inherent and eternal.

They can, however, be oppressed by those who seek to dominate the lives of others. This is what the establishment today calls “progress”. Their version of social order is not new, nor is it even clever. It is archaic, and has taken many forms, including oligarchy, aristocracy, mercantilism, monarchy, totalitarianism, despotism, fascism, socialism, communism, globalism, etc., etc. The goal is always the same; centralize as much power as possible into as few hands as possible while making the enslaved population as collectivized and dependent as possible.

The Liberty Movement is not some dying vestige of America’s past clinging to an antiquated philosophy. We are the new wave; the messengers of an ideal of freedom that in the grand scheme of history has been around for only a blink of an eye. Constitutional liberty IS the progress that humanity has been waiting for. We have only been led astray by those who would sell us on our own bondage.

The SPLC and others within the establishment accuse the Liberty Movement of arming for conflict against the government. I am here to tell them that is EXACTLY what we are doing. We are arming because the establishment is arming against us. Yes, we are a threat, but only to political and corporate criminals who use subversion and violence to wrest freedom from the hands of good people. I am not afraid to openly admit it. I and many others will fight against any measure or man that seeks to undermine the rights of the people or destroy the founding principles of this nation.

We will not allow engineered economic collapse to go unpunished. We will not allow internationalists to subdue American sovereignty. We will not allow national gun registration or confiscation. We will not allow martial law to be instituted. We will not allow American citizens to be imprisoned or assassinated without trial. We will not allow any presidential administration, black or white, Republican or Democrat, to become a De facto dictatorship with no accountability to the public.

Regardless of what they might say about us in the future, these are the reasons why we will fight, and our pledges to resist are not empty assertions. We will stop the course of tyranny from completing in this country and in this era, one way or another. If this makes us “extremists”, or “terrorists”, then so be it. I, for one, am tired of the long running game of lies and reserved rhetoric. They know a fight is coming, and we know a fight is coming. Let’s just admit it and be done with it. Their greatest weakness is that they have to use deceit, propaganda, media monopoly, and false flag violence in order to convince the public that they are the “right side”. All we have to do is continue telling the truth, and stand fast…

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Senate Judiciary CommitteeYesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) revealed that her "assault weapon" ban will not be part of the gun control bill that Senate Democrats plan to offer next month. Although her bill still can be offered as an amendment, Politico reports, "its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat." At the risk of reading too much into this delightful development, I count it as a victory not just for the Second Amendment but for rationality in lawmaking.

As a comparison of the testimony pro and con readily reveals, supporters of Feinstein's bill never offered a plausible, let alone persuasive, explanation for the distinction she drew between the guns she deemed "legitimate" and the dreaded "assault weapons" she sought to ban. The closer you looked at the bill, the less sense it made, a fact that Feinstein tried to paper over by encouraging people to conflate semi-automatic, military-style rifles with the machine guns carried by soldiers. That flagrant fraud sufficed to win passage of the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004 (which was also sponsored by Feinstein), and it continues to influence public opinion. But this time around it was not enough to obscure the absurdity of Feinsten's attempt to distinguish between good and evil guns by reference to irrelevant features such as barrel shrouds and adjustable stocks. With no evidence or arguments to offer, Feinstein despicably invoked dead, "dismembered" children in a transparent bid to short-circuit logical thought. Her appeal to blind fear was familiar to anyone who has watched this authoritarian centrist rail against mythical drugs or kowtow to the national security state. I savor her richly deserved defeat.

G.M. - I only know I've heard some news outlets attempt to soft-pedal the large ammunition purchases. Specifically, what do you think is inaccurate in Smith's article and why? I don't trust 95% of the media - who are in Obama's back pocket.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

We have been getting plenty of e-mail about purchases and contracts for ammunition by government agencies, which seem to have prompted a run on ammunition by private consumers and the shortages that these runs usually entail. The e-mails usually express concern over the supposedly massive amounts of ammunition being stockpiled and the threat to American liberty that it represents. At National Review — not exactly a shill for Barack Obama — editor Charles C. W. Cooke looks at the actual numbers and debunks the conspiracy theories:

Nonetheless, one could reasonably ask why the Social Security Administration would need any ammunition at all. Are the elderly especially unruly these days? Jonathan L. Lasher, in the SSA’s external-relations department, explained to theHuffington Post that the ammunition is “for the 295 agents” in the outfit’s office of inspector general “who investigate Social Security fraud and other crimes.” Divide the rounds by the number of agents, and you get about 590 per agent; in a given year, that’s about ten rounds a week. “Most will be expended on the firing range,” Lasher continued.

Okay. And why does the USDA need 320,000 rounds? Because it runs the Forest Service, which covers “155 national forests” and “20 national grasslands” on a total of “193 million acres of land.” As well as agents in the field, the outfit has a law-enforcement unit based in Washington, D.C., whose responsibility it is to enforce federal laws and regulations. In context, those 320,000 rounds look a lot less threatening: If the U.S. Forest Service were to distribute ammunition at the same rate as the Social Security Administration, they would have enough for just 542 agents — not bad for an organization that covers an area the size of Pakistan (or twice the size of Japan or Germany).

It’s all about scale. Forty-six thousand rounds also sound like a lot for the National Weather Service. (Actually, the ammo was requested by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement, which is overseen by the same department.) In reality, it’s not that much. The service has only 63 armed personnel, which brings the purchase out at around 730 rounds per officer. This, suffice it to say, does not present a great threat to the Republic. As the NRA has noted, “more than a few NRA members would use that much ammunition in a weekend shooting class or plinking session.” There are enough risks to the right to bear arms and to American liberty in general, the NRA continued, without “inventing threats.”

Cooke also explores the more significant contracts of over 500 million rounds combined for the FBI and DHS, both obviously law-enforcement agencies, which have been the subject of other e-mails. The DHS contract runs for five years, Cooke explains, and doesn’t require DHS to make the purchases. It’s a pricing-contingency arrangement, one that makes a lot of sense for cost stability and control, that reserves as much as 450 million rounds over the period of the contract.

We get a lot of e-mail with various doomsday scenarios built on conjecture, and we don’t address most of them for the simple reason that we’d rather focus on actual issues. This particular meme has built up some staying power, however, and Cooke’s column should get wide distribution in order to set minds at rest and put them to more productive use. And Cooke has a suggestion where we can start:

Questions do still abound: Whether it is in possession of one bullet or 1 million bullets, should the federal Department of Education be armed in the first place? If so, why? Should its OIG be investigating external fraud rather than handing it over to the police or the DOJ or the FBI? For those federal departments that play no role in combating domestic and foreign threats — such as the DoE — what would constitute a threat requiring armed confrontation with malefactors?

Read this all the way through to see what happens when organizations without a criminal law-enforcement mission try to go it alone; it doesn’t end well. Shouldn’t agencies like the DoE work through the FBI or US Marshals in order to enforce the law? This seems like a ripe area for reform and consolidation within the federal government, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we couldn’t wring out some significant savings by eliminating duplication in law enforcement.

Update: Patriot Perspective addressed this a year ago, and has more thoughts today.

There’s been a lot of internet buzz about the Department of Homeland Security’s “new” MRAPs (a.k.a., tanks). I’ve been holding off posting about the story; there’s a lot of bad intel out there about government gun grabbers. Just because gun owners are paranoid doesn’t mean Uncle Sam is as bad as they think it is. Sometimes, of course, it’s worse. But it appears that the report that the DHS has purchased 2700 new MRAPs is wrong. Here’s the 411 from the official spokesman for Das Vaterland. I mean, Homeland . . .

The MRAPs were transferred to DHS from the Department of Defense, free of charge. But despite recent reports, they have actually been in service since at least 2008.

“The MRAPs we have are not new,” Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for DHS, told Business Insider. “We have been using them for years.”

“[The vehicle] is used in the execution of high-risk warrants — including drug trafficking, smuggling, and contraband,” Feinstein told Business Insider. “We have 16 MRAPs nationwide.”

Sixteen is a lot less than 1700. But still . . . drug trafficking? Isn’t that the DEA’s deal? Or the ATF if it’s guns. Or the CIA if it’s foreign terrorists. Or is that the FBI? They do explosives too, right?

You know in all this excitement I lost track of all the federal agents with SWAT and SRT teams ready to enforce federal gun control laws of one sort or another. But I do remember that the DHS recently raided a New Mexico gun dealer, confiscated his guns and charged him with . . . nada.

So the DH is out there, grabbing guns. But they only have 16 heavily armored troop vehicles with which do it. Feel better now?

I could have swore that the two pieces GM posts today have been posted somewhere on the forum previously. I know I did post the NRO piece on my FB page because I found it persuasive and felt honor bound to share it in light of previous posts that I had made.

I urge both G.M. and Crafty to consider the following with regard to Brandon Smith's article, and notice each of his arguments. Don't simply take one statement and ignore those related to or supporting it:

This article clearly ignores the fact that the DHS alone has ordered 1.6 billion to 2 billion rounds, and plays primarily on the orders of agencies like social security. This is typical of so called "debunkers". They like to twist the facts or shift numbers to fit their argument. The bottom line is, the DHS does NOT use hollow point 40. cal or .308 sniper rounds for training or qualifications. These are combat rounds only. Also, the DHS has ordered at minimum 75 years worth of ammunition if they only planned to use it for training, which is absurd. No government agency plans that far ahead. Also, if they have no nefarious designs for this massive stockpile, then why are they refusing to answer the questions of various Congressmen on the issue?

I would also point out to your friends that there are plenty of Republicans that have supported Obama in his power grabbing, including using drones against American citizens. Just because a website (NRO) claims to be Republican, doesn't mean they are anti-state power, or anti-Obama.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Crafty - you need to check out these specific stories. They are sourced from DHS and Congress people, and even have a video of one Congressman discussing this issue, and how he cannot get any answers. I agree with you in general about the overall sites, but these stories are worthy of your time.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

In case you hadn’t noticed, we are in the midst of an ammunition, primer and propellant shortage. Stories are making both local and national news, and rumors abound on the Internet. I understand there have been large Federal contracts, but those cannot come close to explaining the increased demand for ammunition and components. There is more than a billion—that’s billion with a “B”—rounds of .22 Long Rifle produced in this country every year. One estimate puts it at closer to a billion and a half. The DHS has not bought a billion and a half rounds of .22 LR, so it cannot be pinned on them. Also, it is unlikely to me that Janet Napolitano is trying to corner the world market on Hodgdon Varget, even though it is one of my favorite go-to powders.

I have some anecdotal evidence of what is going on here. A friend called me from the parking lot of a gun store in Southwest Virginia, “Mark, I just scored 5,000 rounds of Federal .22 Long Rifle!” I cut his euphoria short by saying, “Tim, you have never bought more than 500 rounds of anything before.” To which he replied, “Yeah, but I bought all they had.” I believe Tim’s “score” is being replicated all across the country every time the UPS truck arrives.

In another instance, a colleague and her husband were traveling and stopped by a gunshop off the beaten track and managed to scoop up some .223 Rem. “The last five boxes we have,” the clerk told them. “It just came in.” Odds are my friend Tim had not passed through there yet. They were delighted, and for good reason. You can buy all the .257 Roberts you want, but .223 Rem. is difficult to find. Actually my somewhat cynical colleague speculated the store owner really had a shipping container of .223 out back, but was only selling five boxes at a time as sales tactic to increase store traffic. Perhaps.

There is a downstream effect of such purchasing behavior. When people are motivated by external political exigencies to purchase more ammunition than they customarily purchase, there is less ammunition for others. Friends of mine are hesitant to go to the range and shoot as they don’t know when they can replenish their ammunition supply. That goes for matches, too.

All the major ammunition companies have increased capacity and production over last year’s levels, which was a banner year. If the ammunition makers are producing more ammunition than ever before—regardless of government contracts—why is there no ammo on the shelf? Simply put, other people are buying it before you do. This is basic supply and demand. When demand is high and supply low, prices increase. And my friend Tim could not have bought it all.

Speculation has also played a role. Two of my editors are voracious readers of The Valley Trader, a convenience store newsprint classified for the Shenandoah Valley, where they both live. Usually The Valley Trader is full of great stuff, such as “FOR SALE: Men’s boots: $40.” It doesn’t say the size (which I regard as somewhat important) or what brand or style, but the good news is that they are only $40. My favorite of all time though is “TRADE: Will trade a lemur for a zero turn mower.” I haven’t priced lemurs recently (now that “Zaboomafoo” is off the air), but that does not seem like a trade I would want to make. Now sprinkled through its pages are ammo speculators. A definitive pattern is developing. Ammunition purchased opportunistically at larger retail outlets—which have not raised their prices to the gouge level—is going for three to five times the retail price. Again, supply, demand and scarcity. When a product is scarce, you can charge more for it. And those that have the product, often do so. Whether it results in an ammunition equivalent of the South Sea Company Bubble of 1720, remains to be seen. It is my belief as the political agitation slows, shelves will slowly start filling again.

Which begs the questions: How much Winchester white box 230-grain, .45 ACP can I get for a lemur?

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the award of two contracts today for handguns for all organizational elements within the department, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

SIGARMS Incorporated and Heckler & Koch, Incorporated each received a contract award with a maximum quantity of 65,000 pistols that may be purchased over the next five years. SIGARMS Incorporated, a small business located in Exeter, New Hampshire, received a $23.7 million contract for 9 x 19 mm and .40 caliber pistols. Heckler & Koch, a large business located in Sterling, Virginia, received a $26.2 million contract for 9 x 19 mm, .40, and .357 caliber pistols.

The two contracts will enable DHS personnel to acquire handguns in three popular law enforcement calibers and a variety of sizes. These contracts represent the results of the department’s Strategic Sourcing Program that is designed to optimize cross-departmental acquisitions through collaboration of agency technical and acquisition experts. The Weapons and Ammunition Commodity Council, part of the strategic sourcing program, identifies and consolidates emerging firearms and ammunition requirements for all Homeland Security components. As part of this effort, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a Request for Proposals in February 2004 for the procurement of handguns. The ICE National Firearms and Tactical Training Unit led the ensuing evaluation.

“This type of multiple contract award will provide the government the flexibility it needs to enable the DHS entities to address their diverse operational missions, while still maximizing logistical efficiencies found through standardization,” said Thomas Trotto, Director of the ICE National Firearms and Tactical Training Unit.

The technical evaluation of the proposals included a comprehensive handgun test protocol involving a rigorous battery of environmental, reliability, durability, and other tests. Approximately three million rounds of ammunition were fired through 690 handguns of 46 different models during the testing, which took almost four months to complete. Aside from the actual live firing, additional testing was conducted through laboratory analysis and armory inspections. In all, each model was evaluated against more than 50 characteristics before arriving at a technical rating. This data was used in conjunction with past performance and pricing information to select the winning contractors.

The Homeland Security Weapons and Ammunition Commodity Council continues to analyze the department’s requirements for weapons, ammunition, and other officer safety products to identify additional strategic sourcing opportunities."

Click here to read the original/official press release (above) at the DHS website.

You can contact Sigarms, Inc. by phone at 603-772-2302, or by fax at 603-772-9082.

HK Defense Federal Operations can be contacted by phone at 703-450-1900 Ext. 246 or 289. Military Operations can be contacted at Ext. 272. The fax number for HK Defense is 703-450-8163.

FAD has approximately 49 buildings that include indoor and outdoor firing ranges, offices, ammunition and weapons storage, equipment and supply storage spaces.The indoor range complex and the outdoor ranges (to include 2 outdoor ranges currently under construction) have a combined total of approximately 384 firing points for live fire training.These do not include the various scenario-based training ranges that FAD uses for tactical training.FAD has approximately 9 training ranges used for scenario-based tactical firearms training.There are approximately 150 staff members assigned to the Firearms Division including managers, support personnel and instructors.The instructor cadre consists of former law enforcement and/or military personnel who now work for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) and current law enforcement personnel detailed from many of the agencies who participate in training conducted at the FLETC.Training requires the use of approximately 15 million rounds of ammunition annually.The ammunition includes lead projectiles and reduced hazard (environmentally friendly) ammunition.The reduced hazard ammunition accounts for approximately 70 percent of the ammunition expended for training.FAD offers 8 advanced firearms training programs. These programs are open to Federal, state and municipal law enforcement personnel. Some international law enforcement personnel attend these programs when they are sponsored by one of the Federal partner agencies.FAD offers approximately 120 firearms courses. Many of these are contained in FLETC basic, agency basic and advanced law enforcement training programs.FAD conducts advanced export training (off site) at other Federal, state and municipal facilities around+ the country on an as-needed basis.

Fad Innovations Through The Years 1978- Developed first electronic Firearms Training Simulator for law enforcement utilizing a video player to project a scenario onto a screen for law enforcement “Judgment Pistol Shooting (JPS).” The unit was a Beta Vision video tape player that projected onto a white screen made of paper. Live handguns were used to fire special plastic projectiles that would put holes into the paper screen when fired at the video images. A special microphone picked up the shot sound and automatically paused the video scenario) allowing instructors to evaluate both judgment and accuracy of students involving the appropriate application of or restraint from the use of deadly force.1985- Developed first computer controlled Firearms Training Simulator using laser video disks rather than video tape with laser equipped handguns to improve on the original “JPS” system.1992- Assisted F.A.T.S. (Firearms Training Systems, Inc.) with the first commercially produced and sold Firearms Judgment Training System for Law Enforcement)2000- Worked with major ammunition manufacturers to develop the first frangible and reduced hazard ammunition for firearms training.2010- In conjunction with military and military contractors developed the first law enforcement Virtual Force on Force Firearms Judgment Training Simulator System. This system takes the training to the next level allowing tactile feedback to the student (simulator can fire non-lethal projectiles at the student for immediate feedback as to their use of concealment or cover while also allowing the student to utilize different job tools in conjunction with the simulations, e.g.: flashlight, pepper spray, taser device, etc. for less than lethal applications of force. Laser equipped firearms are still used when students must use deadly force based on the circumstances they are engaged with during the simulation. Students are critiqued on their decision making, articulation of the facts, and appropriate use of the law enforcement equipment provided as everything relates to the legal requirements placed upon them.

If you need additional information or have questions about the advanced training programs offered by FAD, please contact the Law Enforcement Program Specialist for Advanced Programs at FAD (See below for contact information).

G.M. - Did you actually read Smith's article? What you are posting does not in any way refute what he's saying.

He never said they don't use .40 cal weapons. He said most federal agencies do NOT use expensive .40 cal HOLLOW POINT rounds for training and qualifications. The DHS purchased hundreds of millions of rounds of COMBAT AMMO, not training ammo.

He also states quite clearly that DHS uses 15 million to 20 million rounds for training and qualifications per year (annually). So, again, why does DHS need 1.6 billion to 2 billion rounds of ammo for "training" when this would last them at minimum 75 years?

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

At every level of law enforcement, you qualify with your duty ammo. I can say I've seen the feds shoot a large amount of the same ammo in training. Every Fed I know gets issued ammo for practice on their own time.

G M - I don't want to get into a pissing match here, but you're avoiding the second part of my question below, as to the amount of the ammunition purchases, AND I know from a personal friend who works for DHS that they do NOT use anywhere near this amount of hollow-point ammunition. Most of what they use in training is conventional, or even "environmentally-safe" ammo, as you point out in your earlier post from DHS.

Until you can come up with acceptable evidence for refutation of the facts reported in Smith's article (not official DHS documents) I am not persuaded that these charges should be dismissed. Further - you have failed to address the issue with Congressional members asking for information about these purchases and receiving nothing. Something is not right here - and I don't think what you have posted effectively refutes anything argued in the original article.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Determined to persuade Congress to act in response to the shooting in Newtown, Conn., Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Monday will begin bankrolling a $12 million national advertising campaign that focuses on senators who he believes might be persuaded to support a pending package of federal regulations to curb gun violence. The ads, in a dozen states, will blanket those senators’ districts during an Easter Congressional recess that is to be followed by debate over the legislation.But in a telling sign of how much the white-hot demands for gun control have been tempered by political reality, the commercials make no mention of an assault weapons ban once sought by the White House and its allies, instead focusing on the more achievable goal of universal background checks.The advertising, which will saturate television screens in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, represents by far the biggest escalation of Mr. Bloomberg’s attempts to become a one-man counterweight to the National Rifle Association in the political clash over guns.READ MORE »http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/nyregion/bloombergs-tv-blitz-on-guns-puts-swing-state-senators-on-the-spot.html?emc=na

FWIW, I saw, I think it was on Bret Baier's Special Report on FOX yesterday or the day before, that DHS purchases this past year were somewhat less than in the previous two years. Of course by itself this proves nothing beyond a reasonable doubt.

By all means, lets keep an eye on this one. Between GM and Obj I think we are in good hands in our search for the Truth.

Back to the original article:"Second, the DHS and most federal and state law enforcement agencies DO NOT use hollow point pistol ammo and expensive Sierra Match King hollow point sniper rounds for “training”. Anyone who knows anything about combat simulation training knows that you use the cheapest plinking ammo you can find, and this includes the government"

I have been the Range Safety Officer where feds have shown up and shot duty grade ammo they were given for practice. I have been at shooting classes where feds showed us for a 4 day class with a 1000 + round count with Uncle Sugar supplied duty ammo for their sidearms. I was envious, to say the least. A friend that works for a DHS agency used to get up to 200 rounds a month for practice if he wished.

As to the assertion about "sniper training". Law enforcement precision marksmen/countersnipers or whatever term you prefer, train with ammo that duplicates the same ballistic characteristics as the ammo they'd use for an actual call out. The ideal is to buy a large amount of ammo from the same production lot and training with it so that when you have to take a precision shot from a cold bore you know exactly the point of impact. You can't get away with buying cheap "practice ammo" for training and save the 308 - 168 gr HP-BT - Federal Premium Sierra Match King Gold Medal for the day you've got to drop the hostage taker.

Let me show you what Blackwater, er... Academi requires for their Sniper class:

This is an intensive five-day course for military and law enforcement candidates. This course is designed for individuals with minimal or no experience using a scoped firearm, and will give them a solid foundation on sniper skills for use with their department or unit. This is a pass/fail course that tests marksmanship abilities under a time requirement for a certificate of course completion. Students who are unable to successfully qualify will receive a certificate of attendance.

Aim

At the end of this course the successful graduates will be able to set up their own sniper firearm system, zero the scope to the firearm, be able to judge the distance to a target and successfully read the winds to effectively engage the target.

GM - I am well aware of what is required of snipers and am not disputing this. I have participated in classes such as the one for which you provide an outline.You continue however, to evade the question of why the government is buying such HUGE QUANTITIES of this ammo. I can absolutely tell you that there are only a very small percentage of "sniper-trained" military and law enforcement. The average enlisted person or cop DOES NOT get this sort of training, and does NOT require or use this expensive ammo for this purpose.

You seem hell-bent on "debunking" the concerns being raised, and/or implying that there is nothing nefarious going on here. I have no idea why that is.

The facts remain as they are, and DHS has studiously avoided answering the very pertinent questions asked by several members of Congress. I don't believe this is "business as usual" for the government. Never in my life (and I am 50 years old) have I EVER seen ammunition shortages even close to what we have now. Walk into a Cabela's or a Bass Pro Shops (major retailers who are not going to artificially limit supplies if they can sell it at pretty much whatever they want to,) and you will see AISLES of bare shelves. I understand that many civilians are buying ammunition now, but government purchases take precedence by law. At the very least, the government is trying to minimize the supply available to the public. I suspect it's actually much worse than that.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

"Unholy alliances" could become a concernWe now know a lot more about what's going to happen with gun control legislation than we did a few days ago.First, the number of the bill we are fighting is S. 649. Harry Reid introduced it on Thursday and brought it directly onto the Senate calendar. This means the bill can now come up at any time — probably soon after the Easter recess is over.Second, the bill is a lot worse than even we anticipated.We expected it to contain the Veterans Gun Ban, which would mean that you would sell, gift, or raffle a gun in America at the risk of a 15-year prison sentence because of something you didn't know about the veteran/buyer.But, surprisingly to us, the Far Left has convinced Reid to include the original Schumer version of the Universal Registry Bill. This would ban private sales of firearms, unless purchasers first get the permission from the government. If Senators can pass this de facto registration bill, they will be well on the way to confiscation (see, for example, Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York, who has a gun owner registry and has called for gun confiscation). If this bill is passed, Senators will claim that they "broke the back" of gun owners in America.Third, there is still every evidence that Reid will move to proceed to the bill under "regular order," which means he will need 60 votes to advance to the "gun control buffet."GOA has been talking and making our case with a host of Senate Republicans, and we would hope that everyone in the Senate understands the importance of stopping the "motion to proceed" to Reid's gun control legislation.Fourth, as we predicted, anti-gun zealots have begun to use the "ObamaCare Paradigm" to threaten, bribe, and coerce senators into submission on the most far-reaching aspects of gun control, including Feinstein's proposal to ban shotguns, rifles and handguns that millions of Americans legally own. So if the "motion to proceed" to S. 649 is adopted with 60 votes, then Feinstein's ban could be passed in the Senate with only 50 votes (plus Biden). Click here for a more technical explanation as to how this would occur.Already, articles are being published to intimidate any Democratic Senator who votes against any gun control and threatening them with the prospect of facing an anti-gun primary challenger — just like we saw on ObamaCare.Fifth, there may be unholy alliances at work which could succeed in achieving a dangerous gun control compromise. One Capitol Hill newspaper is now reporting that "Sen. Joe Manchin and the National Rifle Association are quietly engaged in private talks on a proposal to broaden background checks on purchasers of firearms." We hope this is not true, however you should be aware of this report and use whatever contacts you have to prevent this from happening. Be assured, you can rely on Gun Owners of America to never engage in any compromises!ACTION: The strategy remains: We need to defeat this bill by filibustering and voting down the "motion to proceed" to S. 649. Please contact your senators and distribute this alert far and wide.Click here to send your Senators a prewritten email.Show up at their offices with a delegation during the congressional recess. Rally and conduct demonstrations and call-a-thons and writing campaigns. Know that the anti-gun Left will be doing the same.==============================================

Ten Reasons

Monday, 25 March 2013 15:39 Written by Michael E. Hammond

Ten Reasons Why Senators Should Vote Against the Gun Control Bribe-o-thon

-- And oppose the Motion to Proceed to S. 649

GOA opposes Harry Reid's gun control bill (S. 649)

You wouldn't jump into a cesspool because you were not absolutely sure what was in it.

Similarly, it would be insanity to vote to proceed to the gun control bribe-o-thon because you're not absolutely sure what will come out of it.

Unless Harry Reid wants to invoke a “special order” procedure which will be a disaster for him, he needs 60 votes to proceed to his gun control bill (S. 649) -- votes which Reid does not have if the GOP holds firm. If Republicans hold the line, in fact, Reid probably doesn't even have 50 votes.

And, for reasons which we can explain in a future memorandum, the “special order” procedure could cause horrific problems for Reid.

So with one vote, the GOP could kill all gun control. And, as for those “blue state” Republicans who are scared of the “gun issue,” here's a question: Why would you not want to limit your exposure to one vote which can be framed around opposition to the unpopular Feinstein amendment, rather than have Reid subject you to 20 votes on a variety of “gun issues” which he is crafting to make you easy to defeat?

In other words, if you can kill all gun control with one vote, why would you not want to do that?

Here are ten reasons why you should.

ONE: Feinstein's gun ban could be passed out of the Senate as an amendment to Reid's base bill (S. 649) with only 50 (that’s F-I-F-T-Y) votes. Here's how: Reid lays down Feinstein late in the process and files cloture on the bill. If (1) Republicans who were not willing to oppose the motion to proceed because Feinstein was not YET part of the bill similarly vote for cloture on the bill for the same reason, (2) Feinstein has FIFTY votes post-cloture, and (3) FIFTY senators vote that Feinstein is germane to the bill (increasingly, a "smell" test), then Feinstein clears the Senate.

TWO: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough has said, "We're going to find the votes" for Feinstein. We know, from ObamaCare, what that means: They will use whatever threats, bribes, and coercion are necessary to get the FIFTY votes they need.

THREE: Even if it's not in the underlying package, universal gun registries will be subjected to the bribes, coercion, and tiny concessions necessary to get it added to the bill.

FOUR: Reid will control what amendments are offered or not offered. Anyone who votes to proceed because they think it will give them an opportunity to vote for THEIR proposal is an idiot. If you want to pass Boxer and Graham, GOA has no objection to McConnell standing up every hour and asking for unanimous consent that they be passed, unamended.

FIVE: We don't even have a finite list of amendments which could be offered. Amendments like Schumer's "watch list" proposal could allow Obama to take away guns from all NRA members by the stroke of a pen -- but would be hard to oppose.

SIX: The Veterans Gun Ban (S. 54), which will certainly be in the underlying bill, is horrible. It creates a 15-year prison sentence for negligent sales, negligent gifting, and negligent raffling of firearms. Given that 150,000 law-abiding veterans have had their gun rights taken away (without due process) -- and given that all marijuana smokers and medical marijuana smokers are prohibited persons whether or not on the NICS list -- you would sell, gift, or raffle a firearm only at your own risk. (Incidentally, the Veterans Gun Ban was reported out of Judiciary Committee with virtually unanimous Republican opposition.)

SEVEN: All of this comes at a time when Reid sits on legislation which would unify Republicans' base and hurt Democrats -- just as he demands that the GOP be complicit in bringing up an unopened package of amendments which Democrats' albeit-fraudulent polling suggests would destroy Republicans. Defeating a motion to proceed minimizes the utility of this strategy for Reid.

EIGHT: Conversely, even a losing vote on Feinstein, were it allowed to come up, would help secure Democrat control of the Senate in 2015 by allowing “red state” Democrats to say they were “pro-gun.” And Reid could get 50 votes, while allowing the most endangered of the “red state” Democrats to take a pass.

NINE: In addition, Sheldon Whitehouse has indicated that he intends to break out an as-yet-unseen floor-crafted “let's-make-a-deal” magazine ban. And we have no vote count on this indiscernible threat.

TEN: We all understand what this game is about. Rep. Nadler said it was important to “exploit” the Newtown tragedy. Democrat pundit Julian Epstein said the goal was to “break the back of the gun manufacturers' lobby.” Anti-gun MSNBC guest Hugo Lindstrom said gun control was a “long-term game” in which it was necessary to “get something passed” so that they could “put points on the board.” Former Gov. Ed Rendell said gun control advocates were “lucky” that Newtown was so horrific. The exercise is to exploit Newtown with gun control proposals which are irrelevant to Newtown -- all for the purpose of declaring a victory over Republicans.

If they succeed, four things will happen: (1) Their package will be nothing but a platform for the next set of gun control demands. (2) Saturation media will be encouraged by their “victory” and, as a result, more copycat shootings will occur and more children will die. (3) Democrats will have a vigorous new component of their “ground game” and the most significant remaining pillar of the GOP “ground game” will be demoralized. (4) Obama will have an aura of invincibility which will make it more difficult to stop the rest of his agenda.

For all these reasons, GOA encourages Senators to vote against the motion to proceed to S. 649. Gun Owners of America will be scoring this vote in its end-of-year rating.

GM - the numbers they are supplying to Coburn do not match their order numbers. So, either they are lying, or doing some very creative accounting. I'm not seeing the order for 450 million rounds, or the order for 750 million rounds, which the DHS openly admits to. These tables are also useless because they do not specify what KIND of ammo they are purchasing. I see no orders here for the hollow point sniper rounds that they openly admit they purchased!

Also, even if the DHS used twice the amount of ammo for training that they claimed to use in the past (15-20 million rounds), they still have ordered enough ammo to last them 35-50 years. I'm sorry, but I don't see how you can overlook this.

Also, if the DHS has nothing to hide, why are they refusing to answer questions from Congress?

Also, the ammo issue cannot be debated in a vacuum. What about the NDAA allowing the labeling of American citizens as enemy combatants? What about Obama's secret and unconstitutional assassination list? What about the militarization of law enforcement in general, including the issuance of APC's to local police? What about the legislation allowing 30,000 drones into U.S. skies? What do you have to say about all that in conjunction with the heavy arming of DHS?

Logged

"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

There's a lot of police looking a lot like soldiers to me , , , serving no-knock warrants in "the WAR on drugs" , , ,

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Anyway, though the following article advocates some things with which we here disagree, and misses a key one (the decline of crime accompanies an increase in legal guns) its central point is rather lucid nonetheless and can serve us well:

The Killing ChainBy DAVID BROOKSPublished: March 25, 2013 42 Comments

Let’s say you were writing a novel about a homicide. You’d want to describe the killer’s neighborhood and family background. You’d want to describe his school, his culture and his gang.

You’d want to describe how he got into crime, his prior arrests, his prison time, his drug use and his relationship with his probation officer. You’d want to describe how he got the murder weapon, what sort of police presence there was the night of the killing and what incited the murder.

In other words you’d want to describe a long killing chain, a complex series of links leading up to the ultimate homicide.

Over the last 25 years, American authorities have tried to interrupt that killing chain at almost every link except one. In a hodgepodge but organic manner, there have been vast changes in proactive policing, mentoring programs, gang eradication programs, incarceration rates, cultural attitudes and so on. The only step in the killing chain that we haven’t really touched is gun acquisition. Federal gun control laws have become more permissive over the last several years.

This de facto approach — influencing the whole killing chain except gun acquisition — has nonetheless contributed to a phenomenal decline in violence. Murder rates over all have fallen by about 50 percent, back to levels not seen since the Kennedy administration. There are thousands of people alive today because homicide rates dropped so precipitously.

Now we are in the middle of another debate about violence. If we lived in a purely rational society, this debate would have started with a series of questions: What explains the tremendous drop in violence? How can we build on recent efforts to bring the murder rate even lower? These general questions would have led to a series of more specific questions about police procedures, probably the most direct way to prevent shootings.

For example, as Heather Mac Donald of City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, points out, 75 percent of the shootings in Boston over the past 30 years have occurred in 4.5 percent of its area, while 88.5 percent of the city’s street segments had not had a single shooting. So how can we focus police resources on those few areas that host most of the killing?

Or as Robert Maranto of the University of Arkansas points out, in New York police chiefs and precinct leaders are held accountable for changes in the murder rate in their areas. New York has seen an 80 percent drop in the homicide rate. Why aren’t police officials held similarly accountable in many other cities?

But those questions are rarely asked. Instead, the national debate has focused on just one link in the killing chain, the acquisition of the gun.

Now I understand why the gun has taken center stage. The gun is the shocking fact at the moment of the murder. Also, many Americans are material determinists. In any moral question or frightening conflict, there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the human element and like to fixate on the material factor.

But the sad fact is that gun acquisition is probably the link on the killing chain least amenable to influence. We live in a country that already has something like 250 million guns floating around. It’s hard retroactively to get a grip on them.

Past efforts to control guns have not dramatically reduced violence. The Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Act of 1993 and the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 all failed to reduce homicides significantly. The Brady law, for example, led to a drop in suicides for those age 55 and older, but a 2000 study commissioned by the American Medical Association found that it did not lead to a reduction in the overall murder rate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did an analysis of 51 studies of a series of gun control regulations. It could not find evidence to prove the effectiveness of gun control laws. A 2012 study conducted at Arizona State University and the University of Cincinnati found that waiting periods and background checks had little statistical effect on gun crimes.

Other studies have found more significant effects, but nothing like the impact we’ve seen from changing police procedures and other efforts up and down the killing chain.

If we could start the violence debate over, I’d begin with universal background checks. Acknowledge that on their own, these checks won’t accomplish much. (Drug dealers from Baltimore are not driving to West Virginia gun shows to acquire weaponry.) But use those checks as the first step in a series of policies to reinforce gun trafficking laws and reassert police control over the zones of concentrated violence.

We have a successful history of reducing violence by spreading efforts across the killing chain. We have a disappointing history of trying to reduce violence with a gun-obsessed approach. Let’s focus on what works.